


Guardian Angel

by TheAzureFox



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Aoi's coming Aoi's coming, and they've been holding back on us, freaking finally, i'm so excited for episodes 6 and 7, it's been nearly five episodes, unintended character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 23:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11114802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAzureFox/pseuds/TheAzureFox
Summary: Somewhere down the road, the past repeats itself and Blue Angel finds herself yet again in the path of Cracking Dragon. This time, however, Playmaker is unable to save her and, as a result, she finds her VRAINS account quickly deleted.(A character-study on Aoi Zaizen and Blue Angel. Background study on the Zaizens as a family.)





	Guardian Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha for once I'm not strictly writing a Aoi/Yusaku/BlueAngel/Playmaker story. This fic probably marks me moving away from Yusaku and Aoi and onto other members of the cast (after this fanfic, of course). As much as I'd love to write more AoixYusaku, until canon gives me more material I guess I'm technically burned out for now (but who knows w/ episode 6 and 7 coming up soon). There are other characters I'd like to depict (like Ema or Kusanagi) as well as different speculative fics I have in mind regarding the relationship between of what I've come to dub as 'the six birds'. 
> 
> Anyways, episode 5 is due out tomorrow and soon after it comes graduation. Then after that, an interview for a part-time job (hahaha I'm dead inside, gl me) and then the episode I've waited for since episode one (the appearance of Aoi Zaizen herself <3 We've already seen Blue Angel and now we need to see the girl beneath who obsesses over her brother to the point of being savage towards Yusaku who, as we all know, is already savage himself)

Late. He’s too late.

Cracking Dragon stands over her, its gaping maw wide open. Playmaker rushes towards her, fingers outstretched, and it is as if they are replaying their first meeting over again. He reaches forward, ready to grab at her waist and drag her away, but the monster is faster. Fire rushes past sharp teeth, raining down upon her avatar. Flames catch on her feet. They spiral up and around her, hungry and malevolent.

Playmaker pauses before her, his gaze watching as her VR form is slowly disintegrated. “If only I had been a second earlier,” he laments, thoughtful, “I’m sorry, Blue Angel.”

“It’s fine,” she tells him. “I’ll find you again. Even if my account is deleted, we’ll still know it’s each other. Just...don’t get fooled by any fakes in the meantime, okay?”

The man offers a subtle smile. “I won’t,” his smile wavers as the flames sweep up to her neck. In the back of her mind, she wonders if it must’ve been traumatizing for him to witness such a thing. Seeing her avatar burning to a crisp wouldn’t be a very pleasant sight. 

Of course, such damage would not be made permanent to her real life counterpart. Heights were the only enemy to the human body in the VRAINS. It was only if someone decided to jump off a virtual skyscraper that damage to the real world self was to be feared.

Fire sweeps past her eyes and Playmaker disappears from view. 

~~

When Aoi awakes, her mind is hazy. Smoke fills her brain, clouding her thoughts until all she can do is rub at her eyes and yawn spectacularly. It feels as if she’d just been awoken from a dream and yet the sweat that glistens on her skin suggests otherwise. She still feels the flames devouring her, feels the way the heat bristled through her, scorching embers swarming her body like flies. Though the sensation had been real (the VRAINS had an unfortunate consequence of making everything seem real) she knew it was only the imagination of her mind.

At first, she is numb. Aoi is unable to perpetuate any explanation for what has just occurred. Playmaker’s concerned gaze is very much a cornerstone of her memories, of the way he’d rushed to, yet again, to save her from a risky outcome. Sadly, this time, it seemed like she wouldn’t have a favor to repay him with.

Aoi activates her Duel Disk and tries to log in. As she expects, a window appears before her with the request for the creation of a new account. Aoi stares at it, pondering the message like one might ponder life, before she slowly, slowly removes the device from her arm.

She throws it as hard as she can against the wall. 

However, unlike what she expects, the device bounces off her wall and falls to the floor, unhurt. It doesn’t shatter, doesn’t break, and she’s left staring at it without comprehension as it remains fully in one piece.

Huh. SOL Tech really knew what they were doing when they designed those things.

Aoi draws her legs up to her chin, staring at the item she had just tossed away. It looks back at her, curious, and she wonders how it can bother to exist right now under her seething disapproval. 

“Dammit,” she says. “Stupid, idiot, how could I…?”

She turns on the TV. Playmaker, her partner, her friend, ( _her_ _ might-be-someone-more _ ) declares a duel against their oppressor. The rogue Knight of Hanoi sneers and raises his Duel Disk, agreeing to the initiation of a battle. Aoi watches him with interest, watches the way he scans the battlefield, scans his hand, and then surfs on his hoverboard with the intention of avoiding any stray buildings that come his way. He is intent on the battle, almost too intent, and she feels as if he has somehow become distracted.

“I’m fine,” she says to the TV version of him, reassuring the man. “Don’t worry about me - I’m perfectly safe.”

Playmaker can’t hear her, of course, but she continues to whisper to the TV regardless. The man is hesitant, gaze flicking to his disk and back, and she almost worries he won’t have enough concentration to win the battle in her place. 

However, much to her surprise, the battle is quick and swift. Despite Playmaker’s concerning state of being, the Knight of Hanoi is defeated in a short amount of time and, later, is taken into custody by SOL Technology.

Aoi heaves a relieved sigh and watches as the TV turns to focus on Blue Angel’s disappearance. She pays attention for about half a minute before she cuts the news short. 

She doesn’t want to hear this. Not now.

The girl slinks out of her bed and walks to her disk.  _ There _ , she bends down to retrieve it and slips it over her wrist. She slides her sleeve over that and walks to the entrance of her room. She exits and presses her hand against the wall to her immediate right, moving her arm up and down until she hits a sweet spot of plastic. 

Aoi presses down.

Light flickers and then shines in a long empty hallway. She pauses, squinting at the end to search for black shoes and, when she sees there is none, she slips outside. Her feet slide against wooden planks and she walks until she meets up with a window. Her gaze is dragged outside it, cast upon an endless stretch of black linen coddled with dapples of silver and white. It is a cloudless night, a night to look up and up forever and ever until she can see the outer reaches of the galaxy. It is forever far-reaching, stretching out for an eternity until, inevitably, it hits some alien world.

Would her fans worry, she wonders, now that Blue Angel’s account has been taken from her real life counterpart? Would they even recognize her if she tried to reconstruct her avatar, to reclaim the throne she’d lost? Does she even care enough to retry her career all over again, to restart those hard hours of building up a good reputation?

Yes. She does. Dueling is the world to her. If not for her cards, she would have nothing to take her mind off the world. If not for her Duel Disk and her fans and her talent in card games then it would be inevitable her suffering would have long since sent her spiraling. As Blue Angel, she could always be who she wished she was. As Blue Angel she was  _ loved _ , a star, a celebrity. She was pretty, talented, a graceful duelist and not another student in a long list of others. She could smile and act cutesy, to entertain without fear for the disgust that would trail in her family name. Blue Angel, though more a mask than a person, was who Aoi thought she could never be. That beautiful face, the beaming smiles and carefree waves...well, it was somehow hard to believe that she and Blue Angel were one and the same. 

Aoi holds her hands out together and pretends to summon her whip.

Her whip. Her most prized possession. A strange item of data particles, an item only she herself could conjure. She’d used it to save Playmaker, to return the favor he’d done for her by saving her account when they’d met. Her whip was a memento of her greatest obsession - one of the few items she bothered to feel anything for, her greatest prize in the VR world. 

And now, it was  _ gone _ .

_ Blue Angel  _ was gone.

_ She  _ was gone.

The gravity of Aoi’s situation suddenly falls down upon her. She crumples to the ground, hands bunching up her skirt. She tells herself that she’s fine, that she’s okay and all is well but, before she can stop herself, she’s sniffling and rubbing at her eyes, tears pouring down until ultimately Aoi’s a sobbing mess. 

She can’t stand it. Blue Angel is  _ her _ and  _ she _ is Blue Angel. With the superstar idol gone, with her persona deleted from the VRAINS, Aoi feels like she has suddenly been parted with one of her most important things. She cries and cries, rubbing at her eyes and endlessly hating herself for losing it over a virtual avatar.

“Aoi...Aoi, what’s wrong?”

Her brother’s voice makes her pause and look up. A small whimper the only response she can give to him, cheeks glistening. There’s no way she can explain to him about how Blue Angel’s disappearance is so impactful that it would force her to such a state. Instead, she only watches as her brother kneels before her, sweeping her into a hug. She presses herself against his chest, bawling and acting like a little child. She _ hates _ crying. She  _ hates  _ revealing the weakness of her heart to others, to let them see that cold-hearted Aoi is actually a messy storm inside. But, for her brother, perhaps, she doesn’t mind letting him see that awful part of her.

“Do you...” Akira Zaizen searches for words, “want to tell me about it?”

She shakes her head, unable to speak. 

He nods, chin pressed onto the top of her head. Briefly, she remembers a moment, a time, a piece of the past, in which they had been in the same positions as children. What had she been crying about at...at that time? That she’d been bullied, that she’d been...been tossed aside as she was every time before that? She can’t remember; it was too far ago. All that mattered to her now is that her brother was home, was here, and that Blue Angel, her counterpart (and perhaps the most beloved part of her), was gone. 

They sit in the hallway for a long time. Her brother is quiet, thoughtful, but doesn’t say anything as she whimpers and sobs. Then, a noise. A gentle hum, a loving song, a soft melody that eases away her worries. Her brother sings a lullaby, low in tone and probably out of sync with the actual thing, but she finds herself comforted by its tune. Her sniffling stops and she finds her tears drying on her cheeks and eyelashes. Under the spell of her brother she finds her eyes drooping, her heart-rate slowing, and she grants herself permission to fall unconscious in his presence.

~~~

When Aoi awakes it is by the sound of her alarm clock. Rainforest noises - her favorite thing to wake up to - pour into her ears and allow her to awaken. She is numb, unsure, uncertain. She feels...mundane, common. Should she be...isn’t she...? But, no, as Blue Angel she’s popular, she’s great, spectacular but she…but Blue Angel...

_ But Blue Angel doesn’t exist anymore. _

She drags herself out of bed and looks at the duel disk beside her bed.  _ Odd _ , she’d thought she’d still been wearing it when her brother had appeared before her,  _ but perhaps not _ . A thrum of panic goes through her. What if he’d seen the disk? What if he’d noticed it? It’d been dark when she’d fallen asleep so maybe, just maybe (and quite possibly) he hadn’t seen it while moving her into her bed (because how else she could have gotten there without her remembering? Teleportation?).  _ Yes, _ she thought, _ that was it _ . There was no way he could’ve seen it when carrying her into her room. 

Aoi moves to a mirror. Her uniform is wrinkled; she hadn’t bothered to change before she’d had her meltdown. Her hair was a mess and there might’ve been the beginnings of circles under her eyes. Nothing a bit of make-up wouldn’t fix, honestly, if it hadn’t already done so for her many times before. 

She fixes a few things here and there and then re-examines herself. Good. She won’t be called out by a teacher on a messy uniform or her evident lack of sleep like a certain student does. The her in the mirror stares back, plain and dull and nothing cutesy at all like Blue Angel. She doesn’t have the blue hair or the purple eyes that her brother has. She doesn’t have the cutesy poses or the adoring smiles or the high-pitched voice that rings out high and clear. Rather, she was someone who frowned upon on a constant basis, a caricature of a boyish girl who was drab and mundane and (quite possibly) a nobody.

Aoi’s gaze flicks over each and every part of her that wasn’t, and could never be, Blue Angel’s. She looks over her hair, her chest, her pale lips, her eyes and over the uniform that mocks her as ‘just another girl’. 

She finds her lips trembling.

_ It’s not fair,  _ she thinks.

Regardless, she bends down to pick up her briefcase from beside the mirror, slipping in her phone and notebooks to prepare for the day. At the bottom, nestled in-between a selection of pencils, erasers and pens, sat two heart-shaped earrings touched by wings.

Aoi snaps her briefcase shut.

She leaves without a second glance behind her.

~~~~

School is the worst place for her to be right now. Yet, here she is, contained among white walls and peers who seem to chatter on endlessly about the one thing she doesn’t want to hear right now.

“What happened to Blue Angel?” someone muses and Aoi nearly flinches. “I mean, she’s definitely okay, right?”

Yes, she was. Thanks for the concern. Really not needed right now.

“I hope she returns soon. All these copycats are making me sick.”

Huh. Figures. She’d suspected just as much would happen in her stead, much like how Playmaker had had his share of imitators long ago. 

“What if she never comes back?” a green-haired boy asks, glancing over at a boy with pink-streaked hair in worried exasperation.

_ I want to but- _

“She can’t,” the blue-haired boy - Yusaku Fujiki - responds, head lifting from his sleepy posture. “Her account was likely deleted in the aftermath of the last terrorist attack. Even if she wanted to - unless her account is given back to her - she’s unable to return to Link VRAINS without restarting all over again. Even then, how can we tell her apart from the rest of the crowd? If she restarts her account, chooses a new avatar, she won’t necessarily be the same-looking Blue Angel anyone recognizes. She’ll either be just another copycat or someone else. Not to mention, but her deck won’t be the same either if she restarts. She’ll be building it from scratch again.”

Aoi rests her head on the desk, her arms forming a barrier between her mouth and the air of the classroom.  _ I’ve already thought about restarting my account,  _ she thinks.  _ But it’s not worth it. I know I promised Playmaker otherwise but...but without Blue Angel I…I’m not...I can’t be... _

“Even so, SOL said they were working on a solution didn’t they? A way to restore her account?”

She perks up.

“I...suppose,” Yusaku props his chin on his hands, letting loose a yawn that he makes no attempt to stifle. “There was something about that on the news, wasn’t there?”

“Woah, wait a second. You actually _watch_ the news?”

Aoi tunes out of the conver sation, opening up her tablet to preview the web. Her fingers barely make it through the first search result before her teacher barks for their attention. The man is a strict instructor whose methodology of teaching roots itself deeply in the idea that all technology is evil. She sighs and tucks away her device before he can confiscate it, laying it over the ear-rings that sit at the very bottom. With one last longing glance at it, she closes her briefcase and then peers at the whiteboard her teacher has started scribbling upon.

_ Later, _ she promises.

~~~

Later, as it turns out, is at the end of school. After a rigorous onslaught of classes that kept her from touching her tablet (All due to various circumstances. A group project here, a test there, etc.), she is finally allowed to glance through it on her walk back home. However, the light of the sun makes it hard to read, glaring off the screen of her tablet and making the glass layer hurt her eyes. Disdained but unwilling to pause anywhere until she gets home, she continues on, her cold stare warding off any passer-byers from attending to her. She knows the inhabitants of Den City are friendly but, sometimes, the mere extent they would go to for some stranger leaves her baffled.

Still, she arrives at her house, enters, and notices yet again a lack of black-polished shoes. Her shoulders slump in disappointment. Her brother comes home once in a blue moon, she knows understands, but the infrequency at which he returns leaves her hoping every day. 

Aoi takes up a spot on her couch and flicks through the tablet. Immediately, she heads to the site of her best interest: The Link VRAINS Network Channel. Notorious for its updates on the world of the VRAINS, Aoi figures it’s her best option for finding out any information on her account’s restoration. 

_ There _ . The first article, the one that takes the place of most importance. An article with a picture of her persona winking on the cover. 

“ _ Blue Angel’s Coming Back?” _ she reads the title of the piece and then slides the page past some ads on duel disks and card packs.

It read:

_ Yesterday, after a freak accident with a rogue Knight of Hanoi, Blue Angel’s account was terminated. That is, to say, deleted. SOL Technology, the sponsor to Blue Angel and the company that has appointed her its poster girl, has told news reporters that it is currently working on the restoration of her account. This has caused some backlash with Link VRAINS members who’ve previously had to restart from scratch due to similar circumstances. However, SOL Technology admits they are only giving special privileges to Blue Angel due to her crucial sponsorship with their company. When questioned whether the company knew about Blue Angel’s true identity or not, Akira Zaizen, head of SOL security, suggested that all member’s privacy is kept intact and that Blue Angel is identified solely by the ID of her duel disk and nothing else. _

_ Blue Angel’s account is expected to be restored by the late afternoon. The company implores Blue Angel to try logging into her account at 6 P.M. to attend to her match scheduled later today on time. _

Aoi finishes the last lines of the article with a relieved sigh. She checks the time and finds that the clock reads as 5:05 p.m. Plenty of time to check her account. 

She removes herself from the couch and enters her room, picking up her duel disk and sliding it over her wrist with shaking hands. The girl shivers at the touch of cold metal, almost surprised by how chilly it feels and then checks to see if she is logged in. Her account name shows on a hologram screen and Aoi giggles with a kind of glee that eludes her carefully-polished self. She stands on the floor of her room, arms extended outward as she spins in a circle.

“Into the Vrains!” she shouts.

Instantly, a room of blue surrounds her. Particles of blue and white twirl around her consciousness, pressing up against her until her real-world self merges with that of her avatar. Brown hair elongates to blue, her brown eyes burn into purple and she can feel her long sleeves replaced by air and purple wristbands. Her leggings extend up, her shoes move up her feet like sneakers and white wings unfold from her side. 

A portal opens up before her and through it she goes, landing in midair. Wind brushes past her face and she laughs at such a sensation, arms spread out as the VRAINS system registers her presence and softens her fall to the ground. 

Instantly, there are people all around her. Left and right are the forms of many VRAINS avatars, of animals and dolls and news reporters vying for her attention until there is nothing but a sea of fans flocking around her. She waves at them, giggles, and then answers their questions with polite words.

“How do you feel about coming back to Link VRAINS?” a pigeon inquires, camera hovering closer to her face.

“Great!” Blue Angel says, winking at the glass screen plastered behind such a device. “I’m so glad to have my account back! I didn’t want to live without it!”

“When did you learn that SOL was restoring your account?”

“Not too long ago,” she says to a frog. “Maybe about ten minutes ago?”

There’s a murmur of doubt about that comment but the crowd around her cries for more attention and so she entertains them. They ask more questions - some of which she can’t answer, the others of which are no-brainers - and then, inevitably, they trickle away. When she has but a few handful of people pressing for answers (and a whole flock of fans who fawn over her in a rather disturbing manner), she takes her leave.

She uses the elegance of her VRAINS self (her enhanced-beyond-human capabilities) and hops onto a nearby rooftop. She jumps from building to building, people following her until they can’t catch up and she laughs at that. When she’s certain there is no one else following her, no drones or news reporters or duelists, she flicks her fingers and opens up a portal. Blue Angel steps through it and greets the group gathered on the other side.

“Hiya!” she says, jumping to meet them.

They all look at her, not at all surprised at her entrance. Playmaker pushes himself off the wall to greet her, nodding.

“You made it back,” the man says.

“I did.” She meets his gaze and winks at him. “Did you miss me?”

“Well, there were too many copycats to my liking,” the man responds cryptically. He is, as usual, unaffected by her antics. “The original’s much better, in my personal opinion.”

“We thought you might never come back,” Revolver responds almost snidely. “But, I guess, you’re persistent.” There’s a hint of reassurance in the man’s voice that contradicts his haughty words.

Go acknowledges her with a grin. He pats her back with a hearty laugh. The sheer force sends her moving forward a few steps. “Glad to have you back.”

“Glad to be back,” she spins around in a circle and does an impromptu curtsy for them all.

She looks up at Playmaker. He nods again, satisfied, and then points to a hologram screen he has broadcasted. 

Her scheduled match. 

Right. 

She dips her head and waves to him, opening up yet another portal. Blue Angel looks back. “Guess I’ll be going then?”

“That’d be good. Your match’s about to begin.” Playmaker responds. 

Revolver and Go wave her off and she disappears through the portal and onto a stage. Her opponent - a boy - grimaces as she arrives, disappointment flickering in his eyes. She leers at such an expression. Blue Angel won’t be leaving so soon, contrary to his hopes.

They raise their duel disks. 

“Duel!” they shout.

~~~~~   


A sigh.

A suited man leans back on his chair, taking a sip from a mug of stale coffee. Before him, on a hologram screen, stands his sister. She is in a duel, her Trickster deck working its magic, and there is elation evident on her features. Her opponent crumbles before her, lost and helpless and the match is easily won before a word can be said about it. The man’s gaze watches her without traces of emotion, lips set into a frown. He won’t show emotion, won’t show the relief he feels or the pride he wants to show for the girl who stands up yet again. 

His gaze remains over her figure, over the way she carries herself in a way so unlike the Aoi Zaizen he knew.

_ This is my gift to you,  _ he thinks, his lips forming the beginning of a smile.  _ Aoi, so long as you exist, I will be your guardian angel. Never forget that, even if you are to never know of it.  _

He turns the screen off and leaves his chair to stride down a long and narrow hallway.

Akira Zaizen has a report to make.

**Author's Note:**

> This's based off the initial idea that, had Playmaker failed to save Blue Angel and thus allowed her account to be deleted, this would be the aftermath. Of course, I wanted to place this at the premise of episode one but then Yusaku would be dead so....episode 1 instead repeats itself in a time of the show that's much later down the road. Also based off the idea that Akira would do his best to restore his sister's account should it ever be lost and that he would be her technical 'guardian angel' (as the title suggests) and protect her in any way possible. Playmaker and the rest of the six birds would naturally worry over her disappearance (As they unaware of her real world self) but it would be Aoi herself who'd be the most traumatized over the loss of (what I guess is) the most beloved part of her.


End file.
